The Border Miscellany, or, as it is printed on the illustrated cover, Thompson’s Border Miscellany, was published at Berwick-on-Tweed, March, 1852, price sixpence, and though consisting of only forty-eight pages, octavo, it contains several exceedingly interesting items, among which I would reckon an “Unpublished Letter of Sir Walter Scott,” “Atoms of Information,” and the article of rather more than eight pages, entitled “The Tweed and its Tributaries,” by a disciple of Isaak Walton. The extracts from the Books of Council and Session, under the heading, “Memoranda Scotica,” are also interesting, especially to those who may have the genealogy of the Oliphants and other Scottish families at heart.
The story with which the Miscellany opens, “Florrette; or, Henri Quatre’s First Love,” adapted from the German of Zschokke, by Bon Gualtier, is, in my humble estimation, a piece of dull, uninteresting reading. The poetry, literary notices, and some other odds and ends, do not call for special recognition.
Here is the motto of this short-lived magazine:—
“L’Envoy.
For us and our Miscellany,
Here, stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
Shakespeare (New Edition).”
On the back cover the following note of warning appeared:—
“Publishers are warned that the articles in this Miscellany are copyright. When short extracts from any of the papers are quoted, it will be obliging if the name of the Miscellany be prefixed.”
Who the editor of this venture was I know not, though I am aware that it was published by W. Thompson, at the time and place already mentioned. Perhaps some of your readers can throw light on the matter.
P. J. Mullin.
Leith, N.B.
PORTREEVE.